Midsummer Night's Dreaming

Midsummer Night's Dreaming, taking place live at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon and online, in collaboration with Google

Friday 21 – Monday 24 June 2013

Project directed by Google's Tom Uglow and the RSC's Geraldine Collinge
Play within the play directed by Gregory Doran

People all over the world will be able to join the Royal Shakespeare Company and Google live in Stratford-upon-Avon and online, as they present a one-off digital theatre project, Midsummer Night's Dreaming. This creative experiment will take place over Midsummer weekend, 21 –24 June 2013 and will explore different ways to make and watch theatre. www.rsc.org.uk/whats-on/midsummer-nights-dreaming/trailer.aspx

This ground-breaking project is the first time Google has collaborated with a theatre company. Experience A Midsummer Night's Dream in a very different way, as the story is told in the real time of the play over three days and performed by a group of actors directed by RSC Artistic Director, Gregory Doran. Audiences will be able to watch iconic scenes from the play over the Midsummer weekend and enjoy a day of events on Sunday 23 June in Stratford-upon-Avon. The story will also be reported as it happens, by new characters created by a group of commissioned artists, and shared through the internet. Audiences across the world will be invited to join in, engage or watch the story unfold through an online stage powered by Google+ the sharing tool from Google.

After the event, the RSC will release an online audio recording of A Midsummer Night's Dream performed by the acting company, which will be annotated with the content and side-stories created by the commissioned artists and audiences over the weekend and posted on Google+.

Gregory Doran, Play Director and Royal Shakespeare Company Artistic Director, said: 'I am delighted to be working with Google on this truly daring and innovative project. We will be exploring what happens when one of Shakespeare's best loved plays is experienced through the eyes of the internet.'

Tom Uglow, Project Director and Director of Google's Creative Lab, said: 'Google loves thinking big and we wanted to re-imagine A Midsummer Night's Dream for a digital age. Adding a little of our digital fairy dust to the magic of the RSC, the idea is to take the play from theatre into the real world, online and off, allowing people who can't visit to experience and interact with the play via Google+.'

Geraldine Collinge, Project Director and Royal Shakespeare Company Director of Events and Exhibitions, said: 'I am enormously excited to be working on this project which allows us to play in and between live and online worlds. We're looking forward to engaging people in a new way with Shakespeare, sharing our Midsummer Night's Dreaming with audiences round the world and welcoming people to Stratford.'

Google+ is a product that lets you share the right things with the right people and discover more of the stuff you love across the internet.

Hashtag: #Dream40

MADE IN Stratford-upon-Avon - seen around the world.

Everyone at the Royal Shakespeare Company, from actors to technicians, milliners to musicians, plays a part in creating the world you see on stage. The work, which begins its life at our Stratford workshops and theatres, is shared with audiences through our touring, residencies and online activity throughout the world. So, wherever you experience the RSC, you will experience work that is made in Shakespeare's home town.

Shakespeare has been performed and celebrated in Stratford for centuries and the RSC has trained generations of the very best theatre makers since the Company was founded in 1961. We pioneer contemporary approaches to Shakespeare's plays, as well as staging the work of those who inspired him, and today's writers.